


Razor's Edge

by wocket



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wocket/pseuds/wocket
Summary: Next April will be easier, Mike tells himself every year. It never is.
Relationships: Mike Fortier/Lori Fortier, Tim McVeigh/Mike Fortier
Kudos: 1





	Razor's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is depressing.

The month of April can be unpredictable.

Lori is glued to the TV screen, volume turned up loud enough that it draws Mike’s attention. She doesn’t look up when Mike walks into the kitchen for a beer.

Mike’s not really paying attention and listening inattentively for a moment until it hits him what she’s watching. It’s some news segment about the bombing in Oklahoma City, inspired by the recent anniversary no doubt, and he is faced with the sudden flash of Tim McVeigh’s photo, an unexpected reminder of another lifetime on an otherwise calm Thursday evening. April is his least favorite time of year.

Mike forgets the beer immediately.

“Turn it off,” Mike says from somewhere behind Lori, trying to keep his voice as gentle and calm as it usually is, wanting to keep his tone even. “ _Turn it off_ ,” Mike repeats, louder this time, despite not meaning to raise his voice. It’s not a request - it’s a demand. 

Lori reaches for the remote control but she’s just not fast enough. The damage has already been done.

Upset, Mike storms out of the house. Mike’s eyes sting. He realizes after a second that it’s because there are tears pinpricking the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall. 

Lori follows her husband out the door onto their back porch. It’s dark outside, but the hunched outline of his body on the stoop is hard to miss.

Mike reaches into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, fumbling with his Bic lighter. He tucks a cigarette between his lips, hoping his wife can’t see his shaking hands.

“I don’t see how you can still love him,” Lori complains, simplifying it more than she should. She _knows_ Mike still deals with complex feelings for the man. If things with Tim had been simple, maybe their family never would have ended up like this in the first place. “After all of it.”

“Just shut the hell up, would you?” 

The words come out before Mike can tell himself it’s a bad idea. The rebuke is sharp; it’s a harsher tone than Mike likes to take with his wife, but he’s unsettled by Tim’s sudden appearance on TV after so long.

Lori knows better than to leave something like that on the television, anyway, or so he thought. Mike tries his best to process - he’d done a lot of that in prison - but somehow McVeigh found ways to sneak up on him, still, to this very day. Even though Mike’s thoughts drift to his old friend more often than they probably ought to, it was one thing to be accosted with his face out of nowhere.

Mike kicks the watering can over in frustration before taking a long drag of his cigarette. There’s a part of Mike that still feels deeply for Tim, somewhere deep inside, despite the things he’d done. You try getting Tim McVeigh out of your system.

The images from his infamous perp walk have stayed with Mike. He recognized the solemn, stoic face from their days in the Army, but that was never the look of Tim’s that came to his mind. No, the Tim in his mind’s eye was the shy Tim, charming Tim, the Tim offering an impish private smile and intense gaze from his bed or the driver’s seat.

“You’re in a funk. The 19th was last weekend. Snap out of it.” 

Lori’s advice is cold, brusque. Once upon a time she had lied for Tim, too. That was before she raised two kids as a single mother for ten years. While she had accepted Mike with open arms, her feelings toward Tim were less than forgiving. Mike can’t blame her, but he has a hard time blaming Tim for everything.

Mike shakes his head. His wife’s statement reflects exactly the kind of domineering thing that would have driven Tim nuts. 

The older Mike gets, the more Tim’s perpetually young face haunts his memory. The 19th of April had passed with less trouble than Tim’s birthday, April 23. Lori might not even realize what day it is. Mike marks the occasion every single year, though, sometimes just in his head, more often than not all by himself with a bottle of whiskey and a hollow heart. It’s harder than the anniversary of the day they killed him, for some inexplicable reason.

“Today is Tim’s birthday. Would be. Was.”

Mike fumbles over the tenses, the same way he stumbles through _love, loved, will love_ in the middle of sleepless nights when Tim’s narrow face and piercing blue eyes won’t leave his mind.

Lori’s eyes are dark and endless, clouded with judgment. It’s like she doesn’t even hear him.

“Tim was a mistake.”

Mike’s free hand clenches into a fist at his side. He grits his teeth. 

“Don’t say his name,” Mike growls, not because he can’t bear to hear the name of Tim McVeigh spoken aloud, but because Lori doesn’t deserve to talk about him that way. Especially not the way she is right now. Far too many people have dragged Tim’s name through the mud. The two of them didn’t need to start, too. 

Mike remembers when Lori used to like Tim (his whole family used to like Tim, he recalls with disappointment); he remembers when things were different. Lori used to care. It’s not hard to see why they both had complicated feelings for the man, but Lori’s heart had hardened faster. To some extent, Tim had always been the man that she had to share Mike with, the man who had been stealing Mike away from the beginning.

Disappointed, Lori stares at her husband, hands on her hips. She shakes her head disapprovingly and offers a set of chilling last words before she leaves him alone outside to sulk. “He’s dead and he is _still_ standing between us.”

Lori’s declaration hangs in the air painfully, lingering between husband and wife like cigarette smoke.

Mike drops his cigarette butt and stubs it out. He puts his head in his hands, body wracked with an empty sob. He’ll keep waiting for the day this gets easier.

How long will Mike feel the ghost of Timothy McVeigh beside him?


End file.
